Citizenship

The new law, first introduced by Sen. Schumer (D-NY), requires that USCIS process and issue a citizenship decision within six months of receiving an application from a current or former member of the armed forces, or their surviving dependents. If a decision is not made within that time frame, USCIS will now have to explain the delay and provide a new decision target date. The law also establishes an FBI liaison office inside USCIS and processing deadlines for other naturalization applications.

On 09/28/08, the House passed the Military Personnel Citizenship Processing Act (S. 2840) by a 416-0 vote. The measure, introduced by Sen. Schumer (D-NY), would require that USCIS process and issue a citizenship decision within six months of receiving an application from a current or former member of the armed forces, or their surviving dependents. If a decision is not made within that time frame, USCIS would be required to explain the delay and provide a new decision target date. The bill would also establish an FBI liaison office inside USCIS and processing deadlines for other naturalization applications. The Senate passed the measure by voice vote on 09/24/08, and it now heads to the president for final approval.

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recently completed a multi-year redesign of the naturalization test. The major goal of the redesign process is to ensure that naturalization applicants have uniform, consistent testing experiences nationwide, and to provide a fair and meaningful naturalization process. The USCIS believes that the newly designed test will help encourage citizenship applicants to learn and identify with the basic values we all share as Americans.

To accomplish their goals, USCIS piloted a new test with an overhauled English reading and writing section, as well as new history and government questions in several sites across the country. The feedback from the pilot program was used to finalize testing procedures, reading and writing prompts and new history and government questions. While it sounds as if the changes are drastic they are pretty slight with only the format of the questions asking now about US History as opposed to daily living.

Naturalization applicants will begin taking the redesigned test on October 1, 2008.